Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Adoption

At the Department of Human Services Building

Turning in our paperwork

Yay! We've officially begun the adoption process!


As some of you already know, Robert and I haved decided to adopt a child (or sibling group) through the State of Oregon. Back in November we started a series of classes on Foster Parenting and Adoption through the Department of Human Services to learn more about children in need in our community. We let a few months go by as we thought and prayed about it, and although we had initially been leaning more towards Foster Parenting, the Lord has really turned our hearts towards adoption. Because we hope to have a few biological children as well, and will be able to experience infants, we are open to adopting older children (0-5 years). These children are not your typical adoptable babies; they are children who have been taken out of their homes due to abuse or neglect (or both) and have been living in foster homes while their parents are given the chance to either change their behavior or lose their rights to the child. We know it will not be easy to raise a child with such emotional needs, but we also know that the Lord will give us the strength we need to carry out His calling to love the "fatherless" for we too have been adopted into the family of God! We have finished all required classes and 90+ pages of paperwork, and hope to begin the home-study process in the next few weeks. Please keep us in your prayers as we go through this process; that it will be timely and that the Lord will lead us and the judge to the right child/children for our family.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Smith Rock



On Friday we hiked Smith Rock with some friends from church and had so much fun! It was a 3.5 mile hike and we ate dinner on the summit. We took Kai and he had a blast with Aspen (black lab) and Sage (yellow lab puppy). It was an absolutely gorgeous day and we had such a great time visiting and fellowshipping with our friends. The group plans to do this hike every Friday this summer and we're going to do it with them as much as we can! And as accident-prone as I am, I'm happy to report that my only "injuries" were four gnarly blisters from my shoes rubbing the wrong way on our descent:) I took our camera hoping to capture the breath-taking views, but realized, uppon arrival at our destination, that the battery was completely drained. So the photos above are "borrowed" - and I'll try to get some of my own next time!